Fox kills Alec Baldwin’s phone-hacking joke for Emmys

Deadline | Brian Stelter
Alec Baldwin, star of “30 Rock,” pulled out of Sunday night’s Emmy awards program on Fox after the network killed a joke referring to the ongoing scandal at News Corp. regarding voice-mail eavesdropping at the defunct tabloid News of the World. In a recorded skit, Baldwin played a TV executive talking on the phone when he says, “Rupert? Is that you? I hear you breathing, Rupert!” Deadline reports that Fox killed the joke “not because the joke involved [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch but because they take the phone-hacking allegations very seriously and did not want to be seen as making light of them.” Baldwin tweeted of the incident, “Fox did kill my NewsCorp hacking joke. Which sucks bc I think it would have made them look better. A little.”